The Greks Bring Gifts

8

The news reports, next day, carried long and involved accounts of the farewell to the Greks. They included post-recorded extracts from the tributes of eminent persons, and there was nothing to imply less than complete graciousness on the part of the Greks. Whether contemptuous or indifferent, the abandonment of the gifts just made them was not mentioned. There was some reference to the Greks' disappointment that two special human persons could not be found, to receive the reward the Greks wanted to give them. But there was no mention of the bomb destruction of a car on the parking area. And there was no reference to the digging up of a garbage pit left behind by the Greks. There was total silence respecting all ambassadors— iron curtain or other—who might have tried to do a small favor to the now-departed Greks by murdering a couple of people they wanted disposed of.

Especially there was no mention of the garbage pit. It could be that no newsman knew about it. But it wouldn't have been published anyhow.

Publishable news dealt with the ship itself, which had been watched for by telescopes beyond the sunrise and sunset lines of Earth. It was seen clearly in Hawaii as a curiously shaped sliver of sun-surface brightness, moving out from Earth. At a hundred thousand miles it vanished. The Greks, so the news accounts said, were now traveling toward their homes at multiples of the speed of light. Their ship had vanished when that spectacular interstellar drive began to operate.

Most of the rest of the current events information dealt with riots and rumors of riots in one place or another. Congress and the Administration were under bitter attack for their delay in the extension of broadcast power, for callous demands that persons on relief actually attempt work for which they had not been specially trained, and for seemingly systematic delays in the application of new discoveries for the benefit of the average man.

The average man was a favored subject for speeches these days. Oratory had returned to the status of a century before. Merely suspenseful television dramas had lost their public. Something more exciting had turned up. Instead of watching while imaginary persons suffered imaginary sorrows for its edification, the watching and listening public had identified itself with an "average man" who had been supplied with a high and splendid destiny by the Greks, and was being cheated out of it. The regrettable thing about this picture was that people could believe it.

There was a further drawback, in that anybody who listened could take part in the worldwide drama in progress. And they did. Most confined their participation to words and grumblings, but many found it zestful to riot, to smash things, and, on occasion, to loot.

But these outbreaks of violence were restricted to cities, where people were much too sophisticated and enlightened to listen to anything that did not supply them with kicks.

In the village of Traylor, none of this applied. It was a small and tranquil community inhabited by people who liked it that way. There were no factories or industries. Everybody knew everybody else—had until recently. Nowadays Traylor was crowded with relatives who wanted their children out of the cities. Which was a sane reaction. It should be remembered that there were some sane people all through mankind's adventure with the Greks. Only they were not in the limelight.

Hackett found Traylor a highly suitable place for Lucy to stay in. Presently he discovered that her cousin had explained that Lucy had come to visit. Hackett was described as her fiance, who had brought her here and had to wait until things settled down before he could hope to be employed again. She explained to Lucy that that story made everything look reasonable. If she couldn't confide to her friends that the President of the United States had called her up to chat and to ask a favor of her, she could confide something else. She had.

Lucy was unreasonably annoyed. Hackett hadn't mentioned marriage except when he said he might marry her for her brains. Lucy did not find the idea appealing. She wasn't pleased with her cousin. She was even less than cordial to Hackett when he came back from exploring the village.

"The Grek ship took off at noon yesterday," he observed, "and since then there've been two attempts to kill us, and we've been dumped here where everybody knows everybody else. That looks like quick action! But things move even faster than I thought. There's already an FBI man watching over us, and he's fully accepted in the village and not suspected of any special reason for being here."

Lucy did not answer. She was helping her cousin set the table for lunch.

"The answer," Hackett told her, "is that he was born here. He was pulled off some other assignment to come here and dry-nurse us. So he's officially on vacation and nobody thinks of him as doing FBI work here, because he isFBI!"

Lucy still did not answer. She went out to the kitchen and came back.

"I thought," said Hackett, "you might like to know that we're officially protected. But it may turn out that we're like a staked-out goat it's hoped a tiger will try to devour. If anybody can trail us to here, and does, it will be informative. But disturbing."

Lucy's cousin came in. They lunched, Lucy very quiet and Miss Constance Thale very dignified, as befitted a person doing a favor to her former schoolmate, the President of the United States. She asked Hackett about his profession. She'd no idea of what it might be.

"I'm a sort of theoretical mechanic," he told her. "Hut there's not much doing in my line just now. Nobody's interested in human devices any more. They figure Grek stud will make them obsolete any day. And they're probably right."

"I do not approve of the Greks," said Miss Thale with dignity. "Whatever their intentions, they have caused a great deal of trouble. The President of the United States mentioned it to me."

"I'm afraid I'm causing you trouble, too," said Hackett. "But it won't be long. I'll be going away shortly."

Lucy stared at him. Her cousin said firmly, "You know what you are doing, Mr. Hackett. But I assure you that you are welcome for as long as the woodshed will serve you. When an old friend like the President of the United States speaks for someone—"

Lucy said uneasily, "When are you leaving, Jim? I didn't know—"

"When you seem to be safe," he told her. He smiled at her cousin and added, "When I've looked over the town and feel that there's nobody here who's likely to fascinate Lucy."

Miss Constance Thale looked benignly at Lucy. Lucy was disturbed. Miss Constance Thale read her own interpretation into Lucy's disturbance. She looked at once dignified and wise.

Lucy came to the woodshed later, where Hackett was pacing restlessly up and down.

"What's this about leaving?" she asked directly.

"It'll be presently," he told her. "At the moment I'm marking time. I'm acting under orders—the same ones you have. To keep quiet and stay alive."

"But you said—"

"That I'm leaving. I shall, as soon as I'm no longer asked to stay put. I'm developing an idea that I can't try out where I'm supposed to be respectable. I'll do it elsewhere. Then I can come back if the idea doesn't work—and I'm not caught trying it."

"Butn-what on earth—"

"I have an idea," said Hackett ruefully, "that might explain why we can't understand Grek devices. It's not a very sane idea. I doubt I can get anybody else to take it seriously."

"Can you tell me?"

He shrugged. Then he said, "How truthful are the Greks?"

"Why—I'd say not at all. Apparently not, anyhow."

"They said," observed Hackett, "that they were grateful to us for saving the life of that Aldarian. But they'd tortured and then killed him. Did they lie?"

Lucy nodded her head. It was not a pleasant thought.

"They said they were training the Aldarians like merchant-marine cadets. But they kill them more or less casually—women, too, and at least one child. Did they lie?"

Lucy nodded, wincing a little. Hackett said, "They've left now. They said they were going home. Did they lie?"

Lucy stared for a moment.

"It—it could be. I don't know. But it could be . . ."

"They said they left some Aldarians behind them as volunteers, to help us get civilized. Do you think that's the truth?"

"I don't know!" said Lucy. "I hadn't thought—"

"I like the Aldarians," said Hackett. "Everybody does. They do crazy things like trying to drive a human car in traffic. But there were female Aldarians on the ship—an item the Greks didn't mention—and two of them were murdered, plus a child. Remember? The Greks insist that they're benevolent and do-gooders. But maybe they keep the women and children as hostages for sons or husbands or fathers who are allowed to leave the ship. Some of them were allowed to stay behind when the ship left. Do you think they were left here out of the kindness of the Greks' hearts?"

Lucy stared. She bit her lip.

"N-no. I don't believe I do—not when you put it that way."

"You said you thought there might be friction between the Greks and the Aldarians. It was a sound bit of thinking. But if Aldarians are like us humans—and they act a lot like us!—and people they care for are held as hostages by Greks who will certainly kill them and maybe torture them if the Aldarians fail to carry out their orders—they'll fight tooth and nail for the Greks. They'll have to! So we can't count on much help from them. Right?"

Lucy looked distressed.

"That's terrible, Jim! But it may be right. . ."

"You know it's right. Db you see the point I'm making? The Grek are liars! And look at the fix they've put us in! We're barbarians! We use their sinter fields to increase the fertility of our land. We know why they do it, but not how. We de-salt ocean water with their apparatus. We know what happens, but not why. We use broadcast power, but we don't understand it, and humans use Grek-designed machines and make power receivers, but nobody can make out the reason they work. We're like savages staring at steam engines and tape recorders. We see them operate, but without a glimmer of comprehension. So I've got this crazy idea about why we don't understand. It's too crazy for anybody else to accept. I'll almost certainly have to try it on my own—and I'll get in trouble. And I don't want to be in jail if the Greks come back." Lucy hesitated.

"Could you tell me what the idea is?" He shrugged again.

"That the Greks are liars." She looked at him, uncomprehending. He said again, "The Greks are liars. That's it. That's all."

She frowned, puzzled and even a little offended because he seemed to have told her nothing. He grinned ruefully.

"Too crazy, eh? It's so absurd I don't believe it myself! Come along with me, Lucy. I'll buy you a soda at the drugstore where you had sodas when you were twelve years old."

"I won't!" said Lucy. "My cousin's been talking about us, and everybody would think—"

"They'll think pleasant and sentimental things," said Hackett. "They'll think it's a pity you've gotten interested in a man who can't even hold down a job. Come along."

She protested, but in the end she went. And they walked down a sunny village street, and he masterfully ordered her into the drugstore and to the soda fountain, and they sat on revolving stools and had a sticky strawberry soda apiece. And Lucy was astonished to find that the drugstore was smaller than she remembered and the stools not nearly as tall. Which, of course, was because she'd been smaller the last time she'd had a soda there.

On the way back to her cousin's cottage she said restlessly, "But what is the idea, Jim?"

"The Greks are liars," he repeated doggedly. "And if you really don't see it, it doesn't make sense. But I've got to try it. It's the only idea I've been able to get."

She hesitated.

"You'll—let me know before you leave?"

"Of course! And if I do leave, it'll be because I can't get any help otherwise. I'm not hopeful, Lucy. But everything has to be tried. Everything!" Then he said abruptly, "I don't like the Greks."

His expression was brooding. Anybody who knew what he did was apt to be unhappy. Lucy yearned over him, even in the bright hot sunshine, but that was neither the place nor the time to try to make his thoughts more personal.

The world wagged on. In Traylor there was sunset, and then a star-filled night which produced a slightly gibbous moon, and eventually there followed a morning and afternoon and another night. Hackett worked out his idea in detail and made contact with the FBI man who had been born and raised there.

There was an arrangement and presently he talked on a completely unmonitored line to the FBI man who'd been in charge at the time of the Grek ship's departure. He was told to call back, and he swore bitterly and almost did not. But he did, and talked earnestly, and was most gratefully surprised at the response to his argument.

He went back to the cottage, in great part relieved but again dubious about the argument he'd just offered.

He found Lucy.

"I could impress your cousin now," he told her. "I just talked to the President."

"What—?"

"I told my idea to the FBI character. It had almost occurred to somebody else. Almost. So they understood. They had me tell it to the President. And—it gets tried. You can help." He repeated, "They almost had it on their own. I'm not as smart as I thought. Anyhow they'll send me something to work on and put a crowd of really good men on it, too. No red tape. No taking the matter under consideration. No referral to qualified experts. I named it, I described it—and it's through!"

"But what is the idea, Jim?"

He grinned at her. "That the Greks are liars!"

He was elated. He grinned at her puzzlement, and Lucy was so pleased at his expression that she didn't press the matter. She'd know what the idea was when he had her help him with it. And he wasn't leaving. She didn't want him to.

In the then state of the world's affairs, people who knew how bad things were and how much worse they could become were not standing on ceremony. The decision on Hackett's suggestion, for example, was lightning-like. Usually when a high-level decision has to be made, somebody—or several people—will hold it up until they can claim part of the credit for it. But nobody wanted credit for obstructing the benign program of the Greks. The world was still celebrating the sure prospect of pie in the sky and the imminent appearance of the big rock candy mountains through those marvelous, benevolent, more-than-kind-and-generous space-travelers.

Which was why a highly technical operation had been carried out with incredible secrecy. The small flat object Lucy had received from the Aldarian had been X-rayed from every possible angle. If what it did could be discovered, many examples of it—of any alien device—would be wanted immediately. So the study had been made from the beginning with the idea of immediate manufacture.

After the X-rays, the object was opened with great caution, at a temperature far below zero and in a tank of inert gas. It was disassembled while motion pictures of the operation were taken. Every smallest part was touched lightly to the finest abrasive and the alloy determined by microanalysis of the almost unweightable samples. And while the device was being reassembled, fanatically exact duplicates of every part were being made. And then experts tried to find out what the original would do.

It did nothing. Nothing whatever. The small movable stud moved. No result could be detected by any conceivable test.

Hackett's proposal was injected into the situation at that point. Parts for some hundreds of the devices were available when the non-operation of the original one became sure. One was assembled and sent to Hackett, while others were turned over to other cleared physicists for them to play with.

Hackett wasn't happy when the device was handed him. He wanted something made by the Greks, but he showed it to Lucy and she couldn't tell it from the one she'd received at the hospital.

"The report is that it doesn't do anything," he said wryly. "I doubt I can do anything with it. Maybe the Aldarians are honest. Maybe the original one got hit hard in that motorcar smash. A watch might stop from a jar, without showing damage that anybody but a watchmaker could see."

He sent a message pointing out that his proposal was for examination of a Grek device, not an Aldarian one. If Aldarians were truthful, he might find out nothing at all.

Still, he bought a small transistor radio and set to work in the woodshed of Miss Constance Thale's dwelling. He made a tiny screwdriver out of a pocket-knife. He set to work to find out what happened inside the device. In theory, in order for any device to do anything, it has to use energy. In order for energy to be used, there has to be a difference of energy-level somewhere. He began to look for that difference.

He was perfectly well equipped. Any race might use screws. They were as inevitable an invention as the wheel. These were left-hand screws and very tiny, but his pocketknife-converted-to-a-screwdriver worked perfectly well. And for a check of energy-levels the transistor radio was perfect. The loudspeaker would make an audible click with the fraction of a milliampere of current. He checked it with saliva and two metals, and it clicked. He made two wire-points and began to hunt for clicks when any two parts of the tiny things were shorted.

It was simply a reversal of normal examination procedure. Instead of finding how parts affected each other, he searched for a difference in energy. Parts might affect each other in a totally novel fashion which might not be familiar induction or familiar magnetism or familiar anything else. Thoroughly capable men had undoubtedly searched for familiar items or principles in the gadget. Hackett didn't.

So he found clicks. When the movable stud was in one position there were none. In the other, they were there. He disassembled the device and put it together in every possible fashion. In one arrangement there were no clicks with the stud here and there were clicks with the stud there. That was all he found out.

Lucy stood by, watching. Presently Hackett said, "It seems to work, but not to do anything."

"It—might be," said Lucy hesitantly, "that it does something we never want to have done. A savage wouldn't understand a watch. The savage doesn't measure time and he couldn't see that the watch did. It wouldn't occur to him. He wouldn't understand a notebook. He doesn't write memos. So it wouldn't occur to him that the notebook held information. He couldn't detect it. Maybe we can't imagine the purpose this serves."

Hackett looked up at her.

"I'm afraid," he said painfully, "that you are smarter than I am. That's undoubtedly it. The Aldarians are smarter than we are, and they want something accomplished that we can't imagine. All we know about it is that the Greks don't want it accomplished. You're smarter than I am, Lucy!"

Lucy's expression flickered. A woman learns early that men prefer to be considered superior to women. And Lucy wanted Hackett to prefer her. She said nothing more—which was regrettable. Hackett stood up and gave her the small device.

"Here's a replica of a souvenir and it's all yours," he said wryly. "I'll report your opinion, which is also mine. But what I need is a Grek gadget, made by a liar, to see if I can get some truth out of it."

He was horribly restless as he waited again. It was unfortunate that Hackett had praised Lucy for her brains. It made her reluctant to say more than she had —and she had something more to say. But a broadcast-power receiver came for Hackett to examine. It was enormously complicated. He set to work on it.

This was the same day that an iron curtain satellite picked up fragmentary signals at certain parts of its orbit at certain times. They were not human signals. It could be he said, positively, that they came from the moon.

"Which," said Hackett grimly, "is quite unneeded proof that the Greks are liars! They said they were going home. They didn't. They're off on the other side of the moon, and they're keeping in touch with the Aldarians they left here! They can smash us. And they will when the time is right." Then he said very bitterly, "But they won't have to fight us. We can't fight. And it looks like nine people out of ten are already praying for them to hurry back and take over!"

We were. There's no use trying to pretend otherwise. We were impatient for what the Greks had promised and we were certain they could produce. We who went through the affair of the Greks find the current generation astonished by us. But they'd probably have done the same thing in our places.

They've had us to tell them how the situation should have been handled. We didn't handle it that way. There was no one to tell us. We had to play it by ear. And we did very badly.